1. Field
The present application relates generally to the design and operation of wireless devices, and more particularly, to a wireless device providing WLAN offload.
2. Background
Wireless devices are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and offer many advantages over previous generations. Devices know as “smart phones” are now available that provide not only communication functions, but can also download and execute applications to provide additional features and functionality. It is now common to find smart phones that include a dual processor chipset, where a modem processor provides support for cellular communications and an applications processor provides a user interface, executes applications, and supports wireless local area network (WLAN) communications.
As more wireless devices are placed into operation, network overloading is becoming an increasing concern for cellular network operators. For example, many operators provide custom services so that wireless devices utilizing those services typically need to connect back to the operator's home network. Thus, the types of services offered by network providers also have contributed to the increase in network loading.
One technique used to address cellular network overloading is referred to as “Fixed mobile convergence” or “WLAN offload.” For example, when a wireless device is in a WLAN coverage area, data that would normally be transmitted over the cellular network is offloaded to the WLAN network, thereby decreasing the loading on the cellular network. When the wireless device moves out of the WLAN coverage area, data services to the core cellular network use the cellular network as the air-interface.
Some network operators currently provide WLAN offload solutions. For example, in one implementation, an application executing on the device is configured to determine which air-interface is available for the application to use to communicate with the cellular home network. The application then has to specify to the Operating System which technology to use and the Operating system has to format the packets with the appropriate protocol and forward the packets for transmission using the determined air-interface. Such operation by an application is inefficient and may require modifications or updates to the operating system and/or applications that execute on the device.
Unfortunately, there are several additional issues that are not satisfactorily addressed by existing techniques for providing efficient WLAN offload. For example, WLAN offload should operate independently from the processor configurations provided by different handset venders. WLAN offload should also operate independently from the operating system (OS) running on the wireless device and independently of the cellular technology used by the cellular network. Furthermore, end-user applications should not even be aware of whether the underlying air-interface used for transporting packets to and from the core network is the cellular air-interface or the WLAN air-interface.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a device architecture that facilitates efficient WLAN offload and which overcomes the problems addressed above.